Department of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati

In 3 weeks!

Learn about the liberating power of imagination from 2024 MacArthur Fellow Ruha Benjamin! Join The Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC & College of Arts & Sciences, University of Cincinnati for the 2025 Worldbuilding and Radical Worldmaking keynote lecture, Friday, March 7, 6pm at TUC's MainStreet Cinema. Free & open to the public. Learn more and register here: taft.center/3WD55Bx

Congratulations to Tara Westmor on her 2024–25 The Fulbright Program award to support her project “The Spoken and the Spark: The Social Life of Poetry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.” Tara is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. With an MFA in creative writing from New Mexico State University, Tara uses poetry as a lens to study how the arts are coopted as a nation-building tool and cultural industry in Southern Vietnam.

“My research aims to explore poetry communities and creative economies in Vietnam,” she said. “I look at Vietnamese poetry as a lens for how culture gets co-opted into national and capitalist schemas, where in the cultural and creative sectors, ‘innovation’ has not been used to discuss the arts.”

Fulbright awards will fund students’ research in Hungary and Vietnam Awardees are Kristen Herbert and Tara Westmor

Research Participants Needed

Join us next week as we celebrate the Anthropology & Archaeology Class of 2024! Thursday, April 18, 12:30pm, 4th Floor Braunstein Atrium

Anthropos, UC's undergraduate anthropology club, is hosting "Anthropology of Chocolate," a learning & tasting event Tuesday 4/2 1:30–2:30pm in Braunstein 326. Learn the history, ethnobotany, and ethics of chocolate production! Sweet! 🍫

Join us for our final 2023–24 Anthropology Colloquium lecture at The Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC this Thursday, March 28, 4pm!

"Exploring Disability & Restoring Social Memory in Early 20th Century California: A Community-Based Research Project at the Sonoma Developmental Center Cemetery" with Dr. Alexis T. Boutin

ABSTRACT: During its 127 year history, the Sonoma Developmental Center served thousands of residents who would today be described as developmentally or physically disabled, mentally ill, or deviating from social norms. Between 1892-1960, its cemetery received the remains of nearly 2000 residents–after which its use ceased and gravemarkers were removed. Our project aims to work collaboratively with stakeholders to document & preserve the cemetery as a site of social memory & cultural heritage.Using non-invasive bioarchaeological methods, we reconstruct the contextualized biographies of several early 20th century residents buried in the cemetery to understand their experiences in life and death through the lenses of disability and health.

BIO: Dr. Boutin is a bioarchaeologist who uses human skeletal remains, archaeological contexts & ancient texts to explore embodied personhood, interpreting by means of fictive osteobiographical narratives, framed in terms of a life course model.

Check out our Fall 2024 courses!

We're celebrating with a department open house! Come for the "AMA about Anthropology" sessions, majors' meetings by year, or to learn about the interdisciplinary research, advocacy & outreach our faculty & students do in anthropology! 2/15 12–1:30pm, 4th Fl Braunstein

Check out our spring 2024 Department of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati Newsletter! It's got upcoming events and information about our planned courses for summer, fall, and next spring!

Registration for summer 2024 courses begins February 26. We will offer online, asynchronous intro courses in Summer A & Summer B alongside our publicly-engaged archaeology field school in partnership with ARI. There are also individualized course options. Contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies with questions!